February 1, 2023
Microsoft has invested $3 billion in OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT. It recently announced that it plans on tossing in $10 billion more.
Am I the only one feeling a little uncomfortable about this?
OpenAI can write software, compose poetry and music, and translate 100 languages. One passed a graduate-level law and economics exam at George Mason University. It has grown sophisticated enough to perform work currently done by paralegals, copywriters and entry-level computer programmers. The tech news site CNET has published more than 70 stories written by ChatGPT and, unlike traditional software, AI systems automatically improve themselves. The anti-plagiarism software that teachers and professors use is now useless.
AI text generators can quickly create tens of thousands of simulated, but hard-to-detect, emails and letters from “constituents” to elected representatives and “subscribers” to editors, as well as comments on social media. It will soon likely be impossible to determine which information, photos and articles you find online are genuine and which are artificially generated.
Widespread fake news, facial recognition (by governments and corporations) and autonomous weapons (by good people and bad) are all likely to follow in short order.
So… did I write this blog, or did ChatGPT?